Required packages

Server

Client

Only smbclient is required to access files from a Samba/SMB/CIFS server. It is also available from the Official Repositories.

Server configuration

The /etc/samba/smb.conf file must be created before starting the service. Once that is set up, users may opt for using an advanced configuration interface like SWAT.

As root, copy the default Samba configuration file to /etc/samba/smb.conf:

# cp /etc/samba/smb.conf.default /etc/samba/smb.conf

Creating a share

Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf, scroll down to the Share Definitions section. The default configuration automatically creates a share for each user's home directory. It also creates a share for printers by default.

There are a number of commented sample configurations included. More information about available options for shared resources can be found in man smb.conf. Here is the on-line version.

Creating user share path

This marks the named objects for automatic export to the environment of subsequently executed commands:

Save the file and then add your user to the group sambashares replacing "your_username" with the name of your user:

# usermod -a -G ${USERSHARES_GROUP} your_username

Restart Samba

Log out and log back in. You should now be able to configure your samba share using GUI. For example, in Thunar you can right click on any directory and share it on the network.
When the error You are not the owner of the folder appears, simply try to reboot the system.

Adding a user

To log into a Samba share, a samba user is needed. The user must already have a Linux user account with the same name on the server, otherwise running the next command will fail:

Web-based configuration (SWAT)

SWAT (Samba Web Administration Tool) is a facility that is part of the Samba suite. Whether or not to use this tool remains a matter of personal preference. It does allow for quick configuration and has context-sensitive help for each smb.conf parameter. SWAT also provides an interface for monitoring of current state of connection(s), and allows network-wide MS Windows network password management.

Warning: Before using SWAT, be warned that SWAT will completely replace /etc/samba/smb.conf with a fully optimized file that has been stripped of all comments, and only non-default settings will be written to the file.

To use SWAT, two systemd unit files come with the samba package that allow for socket activation. The SWAT service will be called automatically should a user call on the configured socket. In this case, a TCP connection on a specific port.

Note: By default SWAT will only be available from the localhost, the system the SWAT service is installed on. If SWAT should be available for external connections, copy the unit to /etc/systemd/system/swat.socket, and replace 127.0.0.1 with your system's LAN ip. i.e. 192.168.1.80:901.

On Windows side, be sure to change smb.conf to the Windows Workgroup. (Windows default: WORKGROUP)

Be sure that your machine is not named Localhost, since it will resolve on Windows to 127.0.0.1.

Client configuration

Shared resources from other computers on the LAN may be accessed and mounted locally by GUI or CLI methods. The graphical manner is limited since most lightweight Desktop Environments do not have a native way to facilitate accessing these shared resources.

There are two parts to share access. First is the underlying file system mechanism, and second is the interface which allows the user to select to mount shared resources. Some environments have the first part built into them.

Add Share to /etc/fstab

However, storing passwords in a world readable file is not recommended! A safer method would be to use a credentials file. As an example, create a file and chmod 600 <filename> so only the owning user can read and write to it. It should contain the following information:

If using systemd (modern installations), one can utilize the comment=systemd.automount option, which speeds up service boot by a few seconds. Also, one can map current user and group to make life a bit easier, utilizing uid and gid options (warning: using the uid and gid options may cause input ouput errors in programs that try to fetch data from network drives):

User mounting

Note: Note: The option is users (plural). For other filesystem types handled by mount, this option is usually user; sans the "s".

This will allow users to mount it as long as the mount point resides in a directory controllable by the user; i.e. the user's home. For users to be allowed to mount and unmount the Samba shares with mount points that they do not own, use smbnetfs, or grant privileges using sudo.

File Manager Configuration

Nautilus

Press Template:Keypress and enter smb://servername/share in the location bar to access your share.

The mounted share is likely to be present at /run/user/<your UID>/gvfs in the filesystem.

Thunar and pcmanfm

For access using Thunar or pcmanfm, install gvfs-smb, available in the Official Repositories.

Go to smb://servername/share, to access your share.

KDE

KDE, has the ability to browse Samba shares built in. Therefore do not need any additional packages. However, for a GUI in the KDE System Settings, install the kdenetwork-filesharing package from the Official Repositories

Other Graphical Environments

There are a number of useful programs, but they may need to have packages created for them. This can be done with the Arch package build system. The good thing about these others is that they do not require a particular environment to be installed to support them, and so they bring along less baggage.

LinNeighborhood, RUmba, xffm-samba plugin for Xffm are not available in the official repositories or the AUR. As they are not officially (or even unofficially supported), they may be obsolete and may not work at all.

See also

Tips and tricks - A dedicated page for alternate configurations and suggestions.

Troubleshooting - A dedicated page for solving common (or not so common) issues.